As I reflect on the history of disease, and especially the big population killers, I see that they were largely caused or exacerbated by some form of pollution. That means waste getting into the food chain before it’s been processed into a clean, nutritious substance.
In a natural, healthy system, we don’t eat human and animal waste. They’re allowed to take the natural course of events and turn into compost, which then helps to grow quality food. When this pattern is disrupted, through ignorance or ignoring, people get sick, immune systems are compromised, diseases become rampant and people die who didn’t need to die.
Improving human health
The most significant steps in improving human health have come from improving the underlying health of the population by sorting out a fundamental problem of pollution. Smallpox, cholera, polio and many others were virtually eradicated when we cleaned up our mess, got the shit out of the water supply and developed better sanitation.
There’s an interesting principle here. You solve the big health problems by improving health, not by trying to eradicate the problem. This comes back to Buckminster Fuller’s famous quote, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
In my personal experience of 30 years study and practice of the healing arts, I observed that the more someone tried to eradicate their health issue (or relationship or financial problem) the stronger it got. But when they create a healthy underlying system, the illness or other problem drops away.
Sometimes they don’t even notice when it happens, which might sound almost unbelievable if you haven’t experienced it yourself. But that’s the remarkable power of the human mind, to forget symptoms and problems so quickly when they’re not there any more, that it can appear as if you were never sick in the first place.
21st century challenges
Nowadays we have new levels of pollution in our system, especially chemicals in our air, water and soil which affect us every day of our life, as well as in medications, skin products, recreational drugs, food additives and the list goes on. We all know that they compromise our health and immune system. We can read about it in science and popular media any day of the week. We can also feel it in our own bodies.
Trying to eradicate the illnesses that arise from this type of pollution using chemical-based solutions is like adding shit to drinking water to clean it up. It’s never going to work. There are enough people on the planet now who’ve proved that cleaning up their lifestyle and leading a healthier life improves their health and their immune system. We don’t need to discuss whether it works. We simply need to apply more energy to doing it.
The new challenge of 2020
In 2020 it’s become obvious that we’re now dealing with a double dose of pollution, because we add into the mix the mental pollution of fear-based communication.
I learned to heal people by talking with them and helping them relax. I don’t wave my hands around, do secret rituals or even offer supplements. The way I talk is very important. If I tell stories that make them afraid they get worse. They also get worse if I tell them how awful their sickness is and the symptoms they might get in the future.
If I talk with them about how healing takes place, it lifts their spirit and energy and they start to feel better. If I keep telling them about healing they keep getting better. If I tell them stories of other people who’ve healed challenging problems, they get even better. And if they listen to people telling their own personal stories of solving problems, that’s some of the most powerful healing of all.
It’s quite remarkable to witness. Healing is infectious. It’s like a positive virus, which is why it’s usually more powerful to do it in a group.
The power of community transmission
In fact, both fear and healing are transmitted from one person to another. The transmission changes the chemicals in the body of both the speaker and the listener.
Again we know this from our own experience. If you watch a scary film it feels different inside your body from watching a comedy, or a romantic one. If you receive very disturbing news, it feels radically different from receiving very positive news.
Those differences affect your health and wellbeing, especially if you’re exposed time and time again to the same type of transmission, whether it’s fear-based or love-based, truthful or untruthful, healing or disease-inducing.
I don’t believe we should hide the facts of what’s going on when we have a problem. A simple, clear diagnosis creates an excellent starting point for improvement. But I’m quite clear that the only way to solve really big problems is to build the health of the underlying system so it’s stronger, more resilient and has greater immunity to threats.
Taking steps to resolve big problems
Therefore there are two critical steps I see now for our current crisis.
The first is that we each individually do everything we can to remove toxins from our lives. This includes choosing clean food and skin products, as well as getting together to refuse products and companies that pollute our environment at a wider scale. There are people in every community, as well as online, who are leading the way in this, and openly sharing what they’ve learned already.
The second is that we create a mental environment that is fundamentally healthy and healing for human beings. That means that we don’t participate in fear-based communication and we encourage and support communication that lifts the spirit and energy of the people around us. It’s so simple to do this, and yet so tempting to fall back into fear.
A simple way to move beyond crisis thinking
The way we talk is the most powerful tool for healing I’ve ever come across. We each have access to it and every one of us can get better at it. We don’t need education, money or privilege to uplift people around us. History is full of stories of the most ordinary people changing the lives of their families and communities by telling better stories.
This way we don’t need to argue about what’s causing today’s problems or what the chemical solutions should be. We actually support the health and immune system of everyone and we simply get better. Then there won’t be a health crisis to talk about any more and we can turn our attention and energy towards solving the emerging financial crisis, using the same principles. At least it will be more successful than what we’re doing right now.
I’m not surprised that there’s so much fighting and polarisation happening at the moment. This always arises when you’re trying to fight the current problems with current solutions. As soon as more of us start to focus on the next level solution there’s no time for fighting. We have something to contribute to that makes us feel good and the ultimate prize is worth working towards, whatever it takes to get there.
